This morning, from 6am to 3pm, over 20 birders were present throughout the day for the Ocean State Bird Club's Big Sit at Beavertail State Park in Jamestown.Our count circle was located right near Lot 3 which allowed us good views of the thickets, ocean, and scopeable views of the main land.

This location allowed us to scan a variety of habitats from one convenient location (near bathrooms). And with northern winds the previous night, birds that were blown out over the ocean turned around and dropped into the thickets just north of the light house near sunrise. We were able to see several species try to migrate out of the water, rethink their decision and turn back and drop into the thickets in front of us. While seeing migrants such as Yellow-rumped Warblers, Red-eyed Vireos, and kinglets do this is exciting, it's interesting to see species less often seen as migrants do this as well. Some notable instances of this are - a 'flock' of three Downy Woodpeckers, a flock of a dozen or so Blue Jays making it to the light house and turning around, a Red-bellied Woodpecker returning to the thicket and landing upside down on a wire, and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Other highlights include many Monarchs, one or two Red Admirals, Clouded and Orange Sulphurs, Yellow-legged Meadowhawks, and several unIDed dragonflies.

The real surprise of the day was a pod of about 40 Atlantic White-sided Dolphins moving by to the north that we watched for about 5 minutes.This is the third species of dolphin seen during a club trip this season! We had Short-beaked Common and Bottlenose Dolphins on the pelagic a few weekends ago.

In the end we tallied 78 species of bird from our circle. All in all a great day with good birds, people, scenery and weather!

Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) 71 Difficult to keep track, most likely many more. Starting around 8:30am they were consistently flying by over head and at a distance. All were seen heading south and south east, none seemed to be returning

Accipiter sp. (Accipiter sp.) 3 Not seen well enough to confidently tell at distance

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) 1 Immature

Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) 10 Estimate; A few in the distance and several passing by close and heading back north and north east